Needham analyst Gil Blum says Immunocore has achieved a significant milestone as the pioneer in introducing a commercial-stage TCR therapeutic.
The company's inaugural product, Kimmtrak, a groundbreaking TCR-TCE in the treatment of metastatic uveal melanoma (mUM), has made a remarkable entrance into the market.
Needham notes Immunocore's primary source of value lies in its IMC-F106C program, designed to target PRAME.
This program is poised to tap into an estimated market encompassing approximately 150,000 patients across various indications, with its first application in frontline metastatic clear cell carcinoma (mCM).
A first shot on goal for IMC-F106C will be in frontline mCM, which Needham estimates at $1.3 billion in potential sales by 2035.
Encouragingly, IMC-F106C has already demonstrated clinical activity in diverse tumor types during its early Phase 1 dose-escalation study. Anticipated results from dose-expansion cohorts have the potential to significantly enhance the company's value in the first half of 2024.
The analyst's perspective is that Immunocore stands at the forefront of TCR therapeutic advancements, and its ability to deliver value in this burgeoning field is unmatched.
Immunocore presents a unique blend of pioneering innovation and adept commercial execution. The analyst is confident that this distinctive combination positions the company exceptionally well to seize the opportunities presented by TCR-based biologics.
After big gains for the U.S. stock market this year, equity valuations could come under pressure from high interest rates, based on historical relationships, JPMorgan strategists said on Tuesday.
The analysts also said theS&P 500is overvalued when the post-Covid stimulus and TMT bubble are excluded. Year to date, the S&P 500 is up roughly 16%.
"Equities are up 16% YTD mostly on multiple expansion while real rates and cost of capital are moving deeper into restrictive territory. History suggests this relationship is becoming increasingly unsustainable, posing risk to the equity multiple, especially since earnings expectations already face a high hurdle for 2024," JPMorgan analysts wrote on Wednesday.
The current level of real rate sits at ~2%, implying the S&P 500 multiple is overvalued by ~2.7x or ~3.9x if post-Covid stimulus and TMT bubble episodes are left out, according to bank analysts.
"Forward multiples assume double-digit earnings growth of 12%, which is a high hurdle for this aging business cycle facing increasingly restrictive rate environment," bank analysts wrote. "Moreover, the unsustainable level of global debt (333% of GDP vs. 249% just two decades ago) and a credible rise in inflation risk has contributed to a sharp move higher in long-term rates."
Global debt provides another negative for an already stretched equity multiple, JPMorgan says, especially since a meaningful portion of the move may be associated with non-growth supply forces like increasing domestic and foreign supply from China and Japan.
A federal judge in Albuquerque has blocked part of New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham's 'public health emergency' to disarm law abiding citizens who wish to carry firearms either open or concealed in public.
The ruling comes after both the state AG and various other officials said they'd refuse to enforce it, AP reports.
The ruling Wednesday by U.S. District Judge David Urias marks a setback for Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham as she responds to several recent shootings that took the lives of children, including an 11-year-old boy as he left a minor league baseball game in Albuquerque. -AP
The order has been slammed on both sides of the aisle, as even gun-grabbing Democrats like Ted Lieu called it unconstitutional, and far-left rag Slate says it's "already backfiring."
Lawsuits have been filed, calls for impeachment have been sounded, and now, famed 2nd Amendment author and economist John R. Lott Jr. has chimed in with a dose of sanity.
After several road rage cases claimed the lives of children this summer, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham suspended the open and concealed carry of firearms in Albuquerque and throughout Bernalillo County for the next 30 days. Grisham’s response will not make New Mexicans safer. Indeed, the opposite is true.
None of the attacks that Grisham can point to involved permit holders. That’s not too surprising – permit holders in New Mexico and the rest of the country are exceptionally law-abiding. In 2021, there was just one revocation for every 45,000 permit holders in New Mexico. Nor was that an outlier. In 2019 and 2020, there were no revocations.
For criminals, it is already illegal to carry guns. All Grisham’s edict does is make it illegal for law-abiding citizens to carry.
Academic research shows that police are the most important factor in reducing crime. However, the police understand that they virtually always arrive at the crime scene after the crime occurs, as one recent road rage incident illustrates. At the end of August, a law-abiding citizen with a permit used his gun to protect himself from a road rage attack near Isleta Pueblo, New Mexico.
The Albuquerque police department doesn’t have enough officers to answer every call for help. Police Chief Harold Medina acknowledges that Albuquerque ranks at the bottom of cities in police officers per capita. And by the end of 2021, Albuquerque had only 70% of the number of police officers that it should have. When the police cannot protect people, the solution is not to disarm law-abiding citizens.
There are now over 22 million concealed handgun permit holders nationwide, and we have decades of data on the behavior of permit holders. Some other states have especially detailed data. In Florida and Texas, permit holders are convicted of firearms-related violations at one-twelfth the rate at which police officers are. And police are convicted at just one-twentieth of the rate for the general population at large.
The average concealed carry permit revocation rate in the 19 states with comprehensive data is one-tenth of one percent. Usually, revocations occur because someone moves, dies, or forgets to bring the permit while carrying.
Academics have published 52 peer-reviewed empirical studies on concealed carry. Of these, 25 found that allowing people to carry reduces violent crime, and 15 found no significant effect. A minority (12) observed increases in violent crime. These 12, however, suffer from systematic errors to varying degrees: They tend to focus on the last 20 years and compare states that recently passed concealed carry laws with earlier states that already had those laws. The latter states, where it was more difficult to obtain a permit, had smaller, sustained growth in permits over the past two decades. The finding that crime rose relatively in the recently adopting states is consistent with the states having the biggest increase in permit holders having the greatest reduction in crime.
While the Supreme Court would likely strike down Grisham’s 30-day executive order, the governor may have calculated that the suspension period was too short for the courts to successfully intervene. Assuming that Grisham doesn’t get a sympathetic trial judge, there might still be time to get a preliminary injunction. But the case would be moot by the time it would get to the circuit court, let alone the Supreme Court.
Police are essential to keeping the peace and bringing criminals to justice, but in most cases, they can’t directly protect people. That’s why Gov. Grisham owes the residents of her state the chance to protect themselves.
* * *
And as theMises Institute's Connor O'Keeffe reminds Grisham, constitutional rights aren't government-issued privileges that you can simply suspend;
Grisham is distorting how rights work to justify her program. She frames rights as a handful of unrelated positive freedoms granted to citizens by the government, which can revoke them during emergencies or when they conflict with rights that government officials deem more important.
In reality, rights are derived from self-ownership. We alone have the highest claim to our own bodies. That right is absolute, so any aggression against our bodies is a rights violation that can be justly resisted or punished proportionately.
And from self-ownership, we can derive the just ownership of property. Self-ownership gives you the highest claim to the fruits of your labor. Unowned resources can justly become owned through homesteading—mixing your labor with unowned natural resources. Once these resources are owned, they can be justly transferred as gifts or through voluntary exchange. Because they are derived from self-ownership, property rights are absolute, meaning any violation can be justly resisted or punished proportionately.
We can see, then, that the right not to be harmed and the right to own property do not conflict—they are variations of the same fundamental right. This is especially evident when the property in question equips us to better protect ourselves and our other property. That’s the case with firearms. The debate Grisham calls for is built on a lie.
The governor is trying to account for the government’s failures to protect people, a service it monopolizes, by violating the property rights of Bernalillo County citizens. She understands this is probably illegal and at the press conference even called herself courageous for moving ahead anyway. Even though, unlike the rest of us outside of government, she wouldn’t face consequences if it were determined that what she’s doing is illegal. She’d, at most, be told to stop.
Or so she thought. Instead, over the weekend, the gun owners of Bernalillo County took to the streets, carrying their weapons peacefully in protest. And the Albuquerque police chief and Bernalillo County sheriff issued statements saying they would not enforce the governor’s order. Because it violates the rights of citizens and draws resources away from preventing real crimes.
Escaped murderer Danelo Cavalcantewas captured Wednesday morning after authorities tracked him down using thermal heat technology from an aircraft before a U.S. Border Patrol tactical unit dog ultimately pinned him down, authorities said.
After almost two weeks on the run, Cavalcante, a 34-year-old convicted killer who broke out of prison Aug. 31, was arrested, found wearing a Philadelphia Eagles hoodie.
He was transported in a convoy to the Avondale State Police barracks where he arrived wrapped in a foil blanket shortly before 9 a.m., Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said at a news briefing.
Cavalcante did not have any significant injuries, except for a minor dog bite, he said.
Chester County authorities were heard announcing Cavalcante was in custody in a broadcast radio call at 8:18 a.m.
“Chester County all stations radio room, Chester County government and various other agencies working on the prisoner escape. I’m proud to announce the subject is in custody. Repeating, subject is in custody," a Chester County official said.
A photo showed Cavalcante being taken into custody following his capture.
Danelo Cavalcante is taken into custody in Pennsylvania.Pennsylvania State Police via Getty Images
How Cavalcante was captured
The arrest comes a day after police set an 8- to 10-square-mile perimeter in northern Chester County.
Bivens said that shortly after midnight, a burglar alarm went off at a residence within the perimeter, which was investigated but with no sighting of Cavalcante.
A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administrationaircraft picked up a heat signal around 1 a.m. Wednesday, started to track it and tactical teams converged upon the area.
Bivens said that a storm with lightning caused the aircraft to leave the area and briefly slowed down the tracking process.Tactical teams secured that area and held it overnight until the aircraft could return, he said.
On Wednesday morning, shortly after 8 a.m., tactical teams converged upon the heat source in a wooded area west of PA 100.
The teams had “the element of surprise,” Bivens said.
“Cavalcante did not realize he was surrounded until that occurred," he said. "He began to crawl through thick underbrush, taking his rifle with him,” Bivens said, noting Cavalcante still had a .22 caliber firearm that he had stolen Monday night.
The Border Patrol Tactical Unit at the scene had a dog with it that ultimately subdued Cavalcante and team members from BORTAC and Pennsylvania State Police moved in.
“He resisted but was taken into custody and no one was injured,” Bivens said.
He said the surprise attack and use of the Border Patrol dog played a "large role" in preventing Cavalcante from using the firearm.
Medical personnel looked at the bite and Cavalcante was taken to the Avondale station for further processing and interviewing. He will later be transported to a state correctional institute to serve out his life sentence.
"It is a true pleasure to stand here this morning and talk to all of you about bringing this manhunt to a successful conclusion and without getting anyone else hurt, most importantly," Bivens said.
When asked by a reporter why officers took a photo of Cavalcante following his arrest, Bivens said he was aware of the photo op.
“Those men and women worked amazingly hard through some very trying circumstances. They’re proud of their work. I’m not bothered at all by the fact that they took a photograph with him in custody," he said. “I say thanks to them and good job.”
His escape and sightings
A sprawling manhunt was launched after the 5-foot-2, 120-pound Cavalcante was caught on surveillance footagecrab-walking up a pair of parallel walls onto the roof of Chester County Prison in Pocopson Township to escape Aug. 31.
An 18-year veteran guard who missed spotting Cavalcante’s escape has since been fired, a county spokesperson said. That guard, who has not been identified, had a cellphone in the tower, a violation of Chester County Prison policy, according to the county representative.
Cavalcante was convicted Aug. 16 of first-degree murder for fatally stabbing a 33-year-old former girlfriend Deborah Brandão and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He is also wanted in his native Brazil, in connection with a 2017 slaying there.
For almost two weeks he eluded police, as officials searched for him in a heavily wooded area that likely slowed both sides of the search.
Some local schools closed, helicopters scoured the area, police provided 24-hour protection to the family of his victim, and patrol cars blared audio of Cavalcante’s mother appealing to him in Portuguese to surrender.
The fleeing killer had been spotted numerous times by surveillance cameras in the search area. He had also managed to shave and change clothes during his time on the outside, images of the escapee have shown.
Escaped murderer Danelo Cavalcante in a security camera image released Sunday. Pennsylvania State Police via AFP - Getty Images
Cavalcante managed to get into and drive a white 2020 Ford Transit van with a refrigeration unit on the top, before dumping it in a field behind a barn in East Nantmeal Township on Sunday, state police said.
Several sightings of Cavalcante were reported Monday evening.
A motorist reported seeing a man crouched in the wood line along the south side of Fairview Road west of Route 100 and responding teams later found his prison shoes.
That same night, a call came in from a homeowner who reported opening fire at Cavalcante after finding him stealing a rifle in the garage. Police said the inmate was unharmed in that incident.
The perimeter set Monday stretched from PA 23 to the north to PA 100 to the east, Fairview to the south and County Park Road to the west.
What's next for Cavalcante
Around 2 p.m. Wednesday, Calvacante was seen being transported to the state police facility to prison.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry said Cavalcante will be taken to a state correctional institution where “he will be housed for the foreseeable future,” though it’s not clear which facility that is.
He was arraigned Wednesday on a felony escape charge that was filed Aug. 31.
At his arraignment, prosecutors sought for Cavalcante to remain in custody, as he’s already been sentenced to life behind bars, Henry said. Magisterial District Judge Michael Iacocca denied bail for Cavalcante and scheduled his next hearing for Sept. 27, according to a charging document.
Sarah Brandão, the sister of Cavalcante's murder victim, expressed gratitude for the support her family received during the manhunt.
She said on social media Wednesday that her family is focusing on “processing everything that has happened while taking care of ourselves.”
"The last two weeks have been extremely painful and terrifying as they have brought back all the feelings of losing my sister and the idea that the perpetrator could hurt us again," she said. "Therefore, I kindly ask that our privacy be respected so that we can collect ourselves and figure out how to overcome this tragic experience."
Law enforcement officers ride by a roadblock as the search for escaped convict Danelo Cavalcante continued in Pottstown, Pa., on Tuesday. Matt Rourke / AP
Chester County commissioners said in a statement Wednesday that Cavalcante’s capture “ends the nightmare of the past two weeks,” and thanked the various law enforcement agencies that mobilized to find him.
The commissioners, Marian Moskowitz, Josh Maxwell and Michelle Kichline, said the county’s prison officials have made “some immediate changes to bolster security,” have brought in security contractors to make permanent changes to exercise yards, and are reviewing changing procedures for security measures and communication to residents who live near prison grounds.
Developing novel medicines that improve human health has been the focus of my work for over three decades. As a bench scientist, serial entrepreneur and corporate executive, I’ve had the opportunity to work on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean with extraordinary people who share my dedication to science and medicine and my passion for helping patients and families.
My experience has also given me a 360-degree perspective on the dynamic challenges of the U.S. biopharma industry and the major value drivers for long-term company success. I became chief executive officer of Vaccitech, a United Kingdom–based T cell immunotherapy company, in 2019. In doing so, I was able to draw upon my firsthand experience of the U.S. market to create a blueprint for the company’s global expansion efforts, and in the spring of 2021, we launched our U.S. market entry with an IPO on the NASDAQ. Soon thereafter, we acquired Avidea Technologies, providing us with a U.S. R&D and operational arm from which to grow.
Our company is not alone in this cross-Atlantic journey, and there are many good reasons for that. While the U.K. is Europe’s leading biopharma hub, with a robust early-stage and growth capital pipeline, the U.S. has much to offer. To navigate the increasingly competitive global landscape and best translate unique intellectual property and innovative drug discoveries into life-changing medicines for patients, many U.K. biopharma companies are establishing a presence in the United States as a critical pillar of their future growth.
For our company, in particular, the leap across the pond was motivated by the emergence from the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the pandemic hit in 2020, Vaccitech developed a COVID-19 vaccine that was licensed to AstraZeneca and used to save millions of lives around the world. As we emerged from this public health crisis, we aimed to expand our focus on novel T cell immunotherapies to treat and cure chronic infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases and cancer. In so doing, we recognized that a U.S. footprint was critical to executing our mission. The value drivers that led to our U.S. entry included:
Building Our Bench. Although there is an extraordinary pool of world class scientists and biopharma industry professionals in the U.K., the U.S. talent pool is larger. As the competition for top talent intensifies on a global scale, a local U.S. market presence becomes essential to recruiting and staffing success. Most importantly, the ability to draw from a larger pool affords us the opportunity to hire the very best people for our business. The acquisition of Avidea brought us an outstanding bench of scientists and researchers in the U.S. that we are now building our talent infrastructure around.
Culture as a Catalyst. While culture can be a challenging consideration in geographical corporate expansion, I personally believe culture can also be a catalyst for value creation for biopharma companies. This is especially true when it comes to increasing an operational footprint beyond the U.K. and into the U.S. By recognizing and respecting the differences in work style and life balance factors throughout U.K.- and U.S.-located teams, companies can create a more transparent and empowering environment on a global scale that supports collaboration, cross-functional decision-making and retention of top talent.
Follow the Money. I’m not the first (or the last) biopharma CEO to note the benefits of U.S. financial markets. They are the largest and most sophisticated in the world. By operating in the U.S., biopharma companies can be closer to where the money is. A local market presence is helpful to building relationships with U.S. investors that can drive the funding needed to launch key clinical development programs and provide the cash runway to advance those programs through major milestones. Global financial conditions have taken their toll on the IPO market, currently making it a difficult path for biopharma companies to gain growth capital. Despite this volatility, private funding sources are still robust. According to the National Venture Capital Association and investment market research company Pitchbook, investments for U.S. biotech and pharma start-ups totaled $30.7 billion in 2022.
Science Wins. For those of us whose life’s work is dedicated to developing medicines that treat disease and improve lives, the COVID-19 pandemic reaffirmed our belief in the power of science. Indeed, science wins. Fueled by world-class universities like Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London, and sustained by U.K. biopharma companies and their drug development partners, science is thriving in the U.K. By entering the U.S. market, U.K. biopharma companies can build on this extraordinary base and access a host of new, innovative resources and valuable partners to support groundbreaking scientific and clinical research programs.
Reaching More Patients. The United States is the largest healthcare market in the world. Establishing a U.S. footprint helps support relationships with U.S. regulatory bodies on new drug filings and approvals, and empowers the success of commercial and business development programs that enhance patient engagement and increase access to new medicines by the people who need them most.
U.S. market entry is a natural evolution for U.K. biopharma companies looking to increase their global reach and impact. By operating on both sides of the pond, they will be in a better position to translate the work of the brightest minds and industrialize the best ideas into transformative therapies for patients that count on this important work.
William “Bill” Enright is the CEO of Vaccitech, a U.K.-based company focused on developing T cell immunotherapies.
Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee Voted 9:3 That the Benefits of Patisiran Outweigh its Risks for the Treatment of the Cardiomyopathy of ATTR Amyloidosis –
– Prescription Drug User Fee Act Target Action Date is October 8, 2023 –
